


just a bloodsport

by longtime_lurker



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:39:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longtime_lurker/pseuds/longtime_lurker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i wish i'd never seen your face.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	just a bloodsport

**Author's Note:**

> futurefic in the canon universe, mostly porn with a dash of feelings. heads up for kink content that is consensual but not 100% safe or sane; for more detail, please check the (spoilery!) end notes. title and summary from Sneaker Pimps. originally posted to LiveJournal in August 2011.

The revolving glass door that leads into the front of the hotel is (Mark thinks, frowning at it) a failure of engineering. It may be aesthetically pleasing, but functionality-wise the thing turns too damn slowly and takes too damn long to dump him into the hotel’s ostentatiously swanky lobby - just another obstacle to dodge after the valet, the pedestrians on the sidewalk, the doorman with his unctuous greetings - and Mark is in kind of a hurry. If he were still back in college he’d be tearing through the lobby with his flip-flops slapping against the gleaming marble floor, but nowadays he’s CEO of a multibillion-dollar company and so he forces himself to walk a little more sedately than he’d really prefer to when he has things to do and people to see.

And, actually, also the other way around.

He heads up to the front desk, double-checking his phone even though he already memorized the text back last week when he originally got it, a neutral-sounding list of logistical specifics just like always: the city, even though that’s a given, and then the date, time, hotel, and name the reservation’s under. That last item’s the one Mark mentions to the receptionist now, voice as level as ever: “Kirkland.” (Reading the text when he’d first gotten it, he’d rolled his eyes when he got to that part, like _oh, aren’t we clever._ )

The receptionist checks her computer, says, “Yes sir, it’s all in order,” and slides the keycard across the desk without a trace of anything but bland professionalism on her face. If she remembers that the executive suite in question has only a single master bed, if she remembers that another man came in however-much earlier and checked in under the very same name for the very same room, she doesn’t show the least flicker of acknowledgement. Mark approves.

He waves away the bellboy who’s lurking in his peripheral vision, since he didn’t bring anything with him. Excepting his laptop bag of course, but that doesn’t count because it’s like an extra limb and Mark wouldn’t entrust it to _anyone_ , be they bellboy or owner of the whole damn hotel. Also excepting the change of underwear that’s stuffed oh-so-classily into a wrinkly ball in his hoodie pocket. 

The lobby has these floor-to-ceiling mirrors running along both walls, the splendor of reflected chandeliers giving the illusion of an even grander and more opulent expanse. As a rule Mark doesn’t waste time on staring at himself, but on his way to the elevators (head down, steps rushed) he looks up at the wrong moment and accidentally catches a glimpse of his own face, and. It’s funny because he doesn’t _feel_ nervous or excited or whatever, nary a butterfly in his stomach or any of that bullshit – but his reflection’s lips are parted, eyes dilated near to black, cheeks flushed like he’s running a fever, a wash of color spreading right down into the neck of his hoodie. Basically, he looks like he’s hot for it. Already.

Jesus. _Get a_ hold _of yourself, Zuckerberg._

He has this particular elevator all to himself, and god is he ever glad of that fact, because inside his jeans his cock’s already starting to harden in anticipation. Mark lasts seven floors (he counts) before giving in and reaching down to adjust, palming himself to try and take the ache off a little, but that just makes it worse. Fuck. He squirms unhappily, and it’s a mercy that he makes it all the way up to his floor without the elevator pausing for anyone else on the way.

When he keys the door and steps inside he sees that even though it’s midday outside the suite is dark, blinds closed almost all the way over the wide picture windows. It’s silent, too, the only ambient sound the low white-noise hum of the air-conditioning. The main door opens onto a lounge type thing where Mark can dimly pick out the silhouettes of sleek chairs and couches, lamps and tables, the dull sheen of a giant flatscreen TV. 

The place is enormous, and no doubt gorgeous, but Mark ignores the rest of it and goes straight to the first interior door, through which is the bedroom. 

On the bed is Eduardo. 

He’s lying on his back, fingers steepled on his chest, feet bare and Italian leather shoes lined up neatly underneath the chair his suit jacket’s hung on. (Eduardo always was like that about his things. He called it orderly; Mark called it finicky.) The blinds are shut in here too, and Mark can just barely make out that Eduardo’s still wearing the rest of the suit, tie loosened and first couple of shirt buttons undone. His face is in shadow and Mark can’t tell if his eyes are open or closed.

“Spared no expense, I see,” he says, glancing around at the plush carpets and drapes, the second huge flatscreen…the massive, luxurious bed. “As usual.”

“Well,” says Eduardo, not looking up or otherwise moving a muscle from where he’s lying. “In a sense, all of it is actually on _your_ dime.” 

Mark ignores that when he responds. “I liked the place in Hong Kong better. More minimalist. This one’s too flashy for my tastes.”

“Unfortunately for you,” Eduardo says, “both your business and mine brought us to Boston this time, not Hong Kong. Now are you going to stand around criticizing the décor, or -?” 

Mark sets his bag down (gently) on the nightstand and climbs onto the bed, ditching his sandals behind him, and - intellectually he knows that it’s only been a few months, but it _feels_ like fucking forever since the last time. The last point at which their business-travel schedules had intersected was back in January, Mark can’t remember where – Dublin? no, Denver. Dublin was the time before that. He thinks. These assignations tend to all kind of blend together for him, one blurry whirl of heated hours stolen whenever their respective work-related paths happen to cross.

It’s bizarre almost to the point of surreal, this strange secret barely-spoken non-arrangement that they have – even Mark has the social awareness to get _that_ – and probably also unhealthy somehow but he doesn’t care because it’s worth it, worth it when he crawls up Eduardo’s body, so goddamned worth it when Eduardo raises his head from the pillows, finally, and presses his half-open mouth to Mark’s.

He doesn’t ask how Mark’s doing or what kind of business he’s here in town on – none of that polite small talk that Mark hates but Eduardo would, under normal circumstances, lead off with automatically – and Mark doesn’t ask him either, even though for once he wouldn’t be totally uninterested to know. Merely for informational purposes, of course; call it scientific curiosity, the way he’s wondering about all the other little things that the old Eduardo would already have volunteered by now, open and cheerful: how his flight was, is he jetlagged, how long is he staying, does he have any free downtime and, if so, does he plan to spend it checking out any of their old spots in Cambridge?

But they don’t talk about that kind of stuff anymore, they never do, so Mark doesn’t now: just kneels in close over Eduardo’s body as they kiss, slow at first but deep, testing their mouths together, the fit, tilt, angles, relearning each other.

Mark knows Eduardo can feel how hard he already is – how hard he’s _been_ ever since he came into the damn room, if not before. He wonders if it was the same way for Eduardo, if that happened for him too, lying there waiting for Mark and thinking about the things they’d do, feeling his own cock swell and stiffen in expectation, here on this bed in the dark. Waiting. Eduardo was always the one waiting for Mark, back…before, but this is different. Lying _in_ wait, more like.

Either way he can’t bring himself to care about being this obvious, about his hard-on digging into Eduardo’s thigh: doesn’t care that Eduardo knows (must know) how bad he’d been wanting this, looking forward to it, because – no matter what else they can’t or won’t or just don’t say to each other anymore – this is one thing, _the_ one thing, where they’re unmistakably on the same page. He can literally feel Eduardo’s body wanting him back, underneath him, the hot bulge in his pleated dress pants; they want each other, and that at least is common ground. Shaky ground, maybe, but Mark’ll take it. 

They’re still rubbing up on each other, slow but steady, while Eduardo breaks the kiss to reach down and peel Mark’s hoodie up, up and off over his curls, except the angle’s bad or Mark’s elbows are bent too much or something because the damn thing gets caught around his forearms, fleece tangling and trapping his wrists together above his head. Mark swears, wrestling it to extricate himself; once he's succeeded he glances down at Eduardo, expecting a snicker or sigh or unimpressed stare. But instead Eduardo’s just looking back up at him, like seriously _looking,_ brown eyes darkening and hips pushing a little harder into Mark’s own. He raises his head to kiss Mark again, fiercer this time, and one of his hands goes up and encircles Mark’s wrists where the hoodie sleeves just had them captive, holding them together with his own long fingers - loosely at first, testing. Then tighter.

“You,” Mark says, and has to stop and clear his throat, the word came out so raspy. “Fuck. I don’t know what we could – use –”

They stare at each for a second longer, Eduardo’s eyes getting even darker as he thrusts mindlessly against Mark’s leg once more, and then Mark goes fast and fumbly-handed for Eduardo’s belt buckle - but Eduardo slaps his hand away.

“I have other plans for that belt,” he says, and Mark’s cock gives a throb so violent that he actually pulls one hand away and reaches down to check that everything’s okay.

“That’s right, touch it now,” Eduardo says, giving Mark’s other wrist a last squeeze before releasing it. “In a minute you won’t be able to,” and the tone of his voice, god – Mark scowls and grits his teeth against the pulse between his legs, and Eduardo gives him a sadistically sunny smile.

He wriggles out from under Mark and bounces up off the bed, full-body kinetic as ever, and bends over to rummage in his briefcase (of course _he_ brought luggage). Mark tips his head to the side and stares avidly at Eduardo’s ass until he hears, “Oh – perfect,” and Eduardo straightens up again with this glint in his eye. “Fitting, hm?” 

He’s holding up a long coil of ethernet cable.

“Unconscionable misuse of perfectly good equipment,” Mark protests, but it comes out pretty weakly because he’s staring at the cord and, to be perfectly honest, the idea is doing it for him in kind of a serious way. Or maybe it’s just the way that Eduardo’s playing with it, half-consciously stretching and twisting it between his long fingers, a silvery fiberoptic snake.

Eduardo ignores him anyway, pointing out, “I _think_ I can afford a replacement if it gets ruined, Mark,” and as he slinks back up the bed he’s still got that glint in his eye, dark and promising, so Mark makes the logical choice and gives in.

He surrenders his arms, his hands to Eduardo, who has to straddle Mark’s chest in a really distracting fashion in order to wrap Mark’s wrists. 

“Together?”

“No,” Mark says, stretching them out to opposite sides of the headboard, crucifix-style. “Apart.”

Eduardo finishes one knot and then the other, Mark tugging to test them, and then he slides back down to straddle Mark’s legs instead. He holds Mark’s gaze, like he’s revelling in the attention, and Mark can only lie there and _watch_ as Eduardo deftly undoes his own tie, the buttons on his dress shirt one by one, finally shrugging it off his shoulders with a smooth ripple of lithe muscles, movements almost sinuous in the near-dark. He trips feather-light touches down Mark’s neck and collarbone, sternum and ribs, and when he finally hits the waist of Mark’s jeans he doesn’t even touch them – or him - except for the zipper, which he pulls down so slowly that Mark’s teeth clench. The jeans have a loose, sloppy fit, Mark’s usual, and for once he curses that fact because it means that when Eduardo pulls them down and off it _still_ doesn’t oblige him to touch Mark in any way that counts.

He hears the jangle of his keychain, carabinered to a beltloop, as the jeans hit the floor. The way Eduardo’s unwrapping him so slowly, like a gift, it's giving him this faint reminder twinge of how Eduardo used to treat him, _see_ him, as something precious - back then, back when Mark was half oblivious and half just took it for granted. As it turned out, he was hardly a gift to Eduardo. Probably more like a curse in the end.

He gets distracted from _that_ dangerous train of thought when Eduardo starts nipping at his bare inner thighs, slides a single teasing finger into the fly of Mark’s boxers (Mark whimpers, soft) before pulling it right back out and away again (this time the whimper’s a little louder). When he forces his eyes open, squinting through the dimness, Eduardo’s down around Mark’s knees and he’s staring. More specifically, he’s staring at Mark’s crotch, the bulge straining against the fabric of his underwear, cockhead threatening to pop out the top. Meanwhile one of his hands is idly tracing over the bones of Mark’s ankles, the arch of his bare foot, an odd contrast to his overtly sexual gaze but it feels good too, all of it, the looking and the touching both.

Mark can feel the color rising in his cheeks, but it’s dark and it doesn’t matter and so he’s able to shut his eyes again and say, “You should do them, too.”

Eduardo’s head pops up, startled. “…Pardon?”

“My –” Mark wiggles the foot Eduardo’s stroking, tugs at the cords that bind his wrists, and gives Eduardo a glare that he hopes conveys his meaning. Eduardo must still remember how to speak Mark’s complex nonverbal language of disagreeable facial expressions, because he aims a _you sure?_ sort of frown up at him. Mark nods back, a sharp downward jerk of his chin.

“Okay,” Eduardo says, and he’s biting at his lip, thinking. “Um, let’s see. I - don’t have another one of those, so –”

Mark hesitates for a moment, warring with himself, and then sighs. “My laptop bag, there, on the nightstand. Side pocket, power cords.” 

“What happened to unconscionable misuse,” Eduardo says drily as he goes for the bag. “Where – here we go. Okay. Together?”

“Apart,” Mark repeats, and he spreads his legs impatiently.

Eduardo looks down at him, loops of heavy-duty black cords in hand, and smirks. Mark’s pretty sure that Eduardo didn’t possess that particular expression back when he first met him, that it’s something Eduardo actually picked up from none other than Mark himself. “Forgetting something?” he says, and sets them down long enough to skin Mark’s boxers down his legs and off. “You almost just cockblocked yourself there,” he continues as he takes Mark’s left ankle in hand and starts binding. “It’s no picnic trying to get those off when your feet are tied.”

Mark smirks right back. “You could have ripped them.” The knots Eduardo’s tying feel as secure as the wrist ones up top, but he’s allowing the cords more slack so that they’ve got some give to them, so Mark can bend his knees up if he chooses. 

“You seriously overestimate my strength,” Eduardo says absently. He’s finishing up the right one now, gazing up along Mark’s spread and naked body, the way the blinds paint slatted shadows across his bare skin, and Mark shivers.

It freaks him out, how much he’s getting off on all of this, how instead of canceling out his desire the fear just seems to ratchet it up even higher, which in turn freaks him out _more._ He compensates with his usual strategy: cutting words delivered in a coldly clinical tone, which in this specific case takes the form of starting up a fairly acerbic running critique of Eduardo’s technique about ten seconds after Eduardo begins touching him again. 

“Oh come _on,”_ he finally snaps, as Eduardo sucks at the side of his neck and slides a too-light hand up along Mark’s dick. “You really should have memorized how I like it by now.” 

Eduardo shakes his head and slides his mouth over to purr against Mark’s ear. “You run that smart mouth of yours too damn much, Mark,” deceptively quiet. “Anyone ever tell you it’s going to get you in trouble someday?”

Mark sucks in a breath and replies, a hissed challenge: “Then why don’t you shut me up?”

Eduardo picks up his discarded tie, slides the silk oh-so-slowly between his fingers as he looks down at Mark, eyebrows raised, contemplative. Mark shrugs back at him like he doesn’t care one way or the other, even though his heart is banging against his ribs as Eduardo reaches down and triple-wraps it around Mark’s jaw, thick folds between his teeth and long deft fingers pulling the knot tight.

It’s not even really a gag proper, digs into the corners of Mark’s mouth barely enough to hurt and he could definitely make himself heard through it if he tried, but that’s not the point. The point is that he’s got too much of a mouthful to talk intelligibly, and Eduardo’s staring down like that makes him want to eat Mark _alive._

The silk is cool and expensively slick on his tongue, and it soaks through with spit pretty rapidly because his mouth is watering, getting wet for Eduardo. It smells like him, the tie, like his cologne or hair stuff or something but most of all just like _Eduardo,_ flooding Mark’s senses, and between the scent effect and the fact that they’re using Eduardo’s _clothes_ and also Mark’s long-established raging oral fixation in general, he’s in total sensory overload already and they’ve barely even done anything yet.

He tugs a little on his restraints, wrist and ankle, testing. It all holds fast.

“Oh _man,”_ Eduardo breathes, for a minute sounding like his wide-eyed undergraduate self all over again, as he steps back and gazes down at his handiwork. Mark can only imagine how he looks, flat on his back and spread-eagled in the big bed, but he’s too turned on to be self-conscious. “Christ. All you need now’s a blindfold.”

And Mark Zuckerberg never does anything by halves, so he kind of figures _well, since things have already gone this far,_ and also _I know what’s better than blindfolds,_ and aims his curt, jerky nod in the direction of the dark, heavy, velvety full-length drapes - blackout curtains for daysleeping jetsetters, globetrotters and rockstars - that are still tied back on either side of the closed blinds. 

Eduardo hesitates for the barest moment before he gets up and lopes over to the wide picture windows, shirtless, barefoot and graceful but Mark only gets a moment to see him like that before Eduardo draws the drapes shut and the room’s half-dark turns to full-on pitch-black. It’s cave darkness, deep-sea darkness, the kind where your night-vision tries to adapt but there’s nothing to adapt _to,_ where you can’t see your hand when you hold it up in front of your face. Not that Mark could, being as both his hands are tied to the headboard.

He takes a breath and drops his head back into the mounds and mounds of pillows, feeling the yards of cool clean zillion-threadcount sheets on his naked skin, limbs splayed like some kind of kinky snow angel. Here, spread out wide in the dark, he can close his eyes and let his mind drift until it feels like he’s weightless, hovering suspended over all the outside light and world and responsibilities and history and complications and _bullshit_. It’s like the dreams he has sometimes where his consciousness is just data floating in cyberspace, pure and disembodied, a ghost in the machine. The cords that bind him here make him feel like he’s wired in with his whole body, the boundaries they delineate forming the fixed parameters of the system, and he’s waiting for the interface, the connecting spark: Eduardo and his touch.

In here with just the two of them, it’s easy (too easy?) for Mark to pretend that he’s got it all backwards: that _this_ is the true reality, the _real_ one, these illicit little trysts of theirs, the past shoved aside for the space of a couple hours as they work out their history on each other’s bodies; that everything else on the outside – the money, the company, the lawsuits, the whole long sad stupid story – was and is only the simulation. This virtual reality - this room, bed, bonds, darkness, a world away from his ordinary everyday life – is a release, an escape, so potent it’s almost dangerously addictive.

He can’t see Eduardo but he can hear him, steps and breaths and the rustle of clothes, once a soft curse as he stumbles or stubs a toe on the furniture or something: the sounds moving closer, back towards the bed. Mark normally gets off on the visual of sex as much as anything else, he’s a guy and all - but _not_ being able to see jack shit like this is maybe even hotter: something about the way that a touch could come out of the darkness from anywhere, a hand, a mouth on his skin, a finger pushed into his mouth or his ass and he couldn’t predict it or control it or _anything_ – He hears the sound of a belt buckle being undone, a zipper, what has to be Eduardo stripping off completely, and that, just hearing it without seeing it, is torture. 

“All right?” Eduardo’s voice is very close now, the usual slight trace of his accent thickened with lust. And then he’s touching Mark’s brow, cheeks, temples, fingertips running lightly over his features like a blind man would, feeling out the expression on his face. _Mark_ doesn’t even know what kind of expression he has on his face right now. 

“Okay, like - snap your fingers, I guess,” Eduardo’s telling him a little uncertainly, “if you need –” 

Mark would roll his eyes, if it wouldn’t just go unseen; would remind Eduardo that he’s way too stubborn to use that shit, if it wouldn’t just go unheard. Eduardo’s waiting, though, as if he expects an affirmation and isn’t budging until he gets one, so Mark nods his head under Eduardo’s hands. 

The touch goes away again (Mark whines, very soft, trusting his mouthful of silk to muffle it into silence) and then there’s more rustling of clothes, Eduardo muttering, “Where’re my _pants?_ I _just_ had them _right_ here – oh – no, those are yours,” and Mark hears the distinctive jingle of his own keychain. 

_“There’s a laser pointer on there, if you need to see,”_ he says, or tries to say, but of course it comes through as an incomprehensible garble.

“What now?” Eduardo sounds amused – but then right on cue there’s a click, he’s found it on his own, and he makes a low, interested noise as the narrow beam of light appears, a bright red glow that slices dramatically through the total blackness of the room. 

Mark had figured that Eduardo would just use it to search for – whatever it was he was searching for; but Eduardo’s looking down at the penlight itself, then up at Mark, the barest edges of his features lit red, and his eyes are hooded with lust.

“Hey,” he says, infusing that one little word with breathless suggestion, and then he clambers up onto the bed once more, kneeling in close between Mark’s spread-wide legs, and he’s still got the light in hand. 

He snaps it on, and the precise laserline sweeps up the bed – Mark cranes his neck to follow it – and illuminates Mark’s right hand where it’s tied to the headboard. Then he snaps it off again, plunging them back into darkness. Then on again, and this time the light falls onto Mark’s bound left hand. Off, dark, on, beam hitting Mark’s wet, gagged mouth. Off, dark, on, skipping down Mark’s neck, collarbones, one hardened nipple, the fluttering muscles of his stomach, and Mark’s hips surge involuntarily, pushing up into nothing; it feels like his circuits are lighting up everywhere the bright pointer touches, current running along the glowing connection lines that it’s drawing over his body. He can hear Eduardo suck in a slow breath. Slow, slow, the red light slips down through hair, curly as that on Mark’s head; and when its bright little eye runs up the length of Mark’s cock, dark-flushed, iron-stiff and dripping against his stomach, Mark actually moans as if it were Eduardo’s hand skimming over him instead. 

He hears Eduardo suck in another breath, this one far more rapid, and then he’s angling the laser beam all the way back up Mark’s body to illuminate his face. Mark scrunches up his eyes against the light, and Eduardo says, sort of wonderingly, “Wow, I could do _whatever_ to you right now.”

And he _could,_ is the thing. Mark’s completely at his mercy right now, bound and gagged in the dark and Eduardo could so easily exact a thousand kinds of terrible revenge on him, could just get up and leave Mark there, could pull that belt out after all and wrap it around Mark’s throat and – and what’s _really_ fucked up is that here in the moment that thought thrills him more than it scares him, sends these wracking shudders of arousal all through his prone and helpless body. 

He looks at Eduardo, and Eduardo looks back, and Mark _knows_ that he’s thinking the same thing, it’s there in the red reflecting in his eyes – 

A second later the light snaps off once again, and this time it stays that way, bright afterbursts flashing in Mark’s vision as it gets used to the inky dark again. He feels Eduardo’s touch on his leg, tries not to moan again as Eduardo’s disembodied voice instructs him to “bend your knees up, just – a little, there –”

And then there are fingers pricking their way up his inner thighs, followed by little bites, those followed in turn by soft licks to soothe them over. He’s already squirming, as much as his bonds allow for, by the time the pressure of that tongue strokes up behind his balls, and when it teases a slow wet circle around his hole Mark _thrashes._

He hears Eduardo’s low laugh. “Easy there, you’re going to sprain something.” And then without the least hint of a warning his lips are slipping down around just the swollen head of Mark’s cock, sucking so maddeningly softly that Mark’s fingers twitch involuntarily in their bonds, itching to bury themselves in Eduardo’s hair, to jerk and tug and push Eduardo’s mouth down onto him properly, way way down as far he can, oh god. He stares downwards, willing his body to suddenly develop infrared perception, but all he gets is the unbroken blackness and the unmistakable sound of cocksucking, wet and rhythmic and indescribably lewd. Mark clamps his teeth down hard on the silk in his mouth like he’s biting a bullet, setting his jaw against the perfect fucking agony.

When Eduardo _does_ go down all the way Mark can’t help it, gets noisy as fuck even with the gag, but that’s okay, it seems like it just gets Eduardo even hotter for it, his fingers clamping down on the insides of Mark’s spread thighs as he swallows deep around him. Mark feels rather than hears him moan, the vibrations deep in his throat transferred straight to Mark’s cock, and he’s seriously right on the edge when Eduardo pulls off with the filthiest suction sound known to man. Mark half strangles a cry behind the gag, and Eduardo’s scrambling up the bed to stretch his whole lithe length up over Mark, their bodies sliding together with sweat everywhere they touch, and he lowers his face to Mark’s with his mouth still all dripping wet from sucking Mark’s cock and _licks_ along the tie like some kind of warped French kiss. Through the soaking silk Mark pushes back with his own mouth, teeth, tongue as hard as he can and Eduardo groans low and then he’s ripping the makeshift gag away and replacing it with his own hot tongue.

The pressure of the tying had numbed Mark’s lips a little and now all the blood flows back into them at once, viciously sensitized for Eduardo’s desperate kiss, his spit-slick mouth. Eduardo tastes like _him,_ fuck, and Mark’s cock is throbbing with the after-impression of lips wrapped around it, he wants to stick a hand down and touch it, grab and squeeze and stroke until he comes if Eduardo won’t do it for him, but he can’t, wrists jerking uselessly against the cable. Ungagged now, he could say it, _touch me, god damn you,_ but he won’t –

Suddenly Eduardo pulls away completely, the warm weight of him moving off Mark, off the bed and everything, disappearing into the black, and for a few disoriented moments Mark feels utterly abandoned, so lost and alone in the dark that he almost does speak after all, ask _What, where, come back_ \- before Eduardo _is_ back and on top of him and sinking right down onto Mark’s rock-hard dick with absolutely no warning whatsofuckingever. 

He’s wet and so hot inside and Mark holds out stoically for about five seconds until Eduardo actually _moves,_ dragging himself inch by inch up Mark’s cock and then plunging back down, and the slick, dirty ride of it is what finally breaks him. Every overextended muscle in his body’s flexing uncontrollably, limbs twisting in his bonds and back arching as much as he can manage, trying to slam himself further up Eduardo’s ass even when there’s no further to go, and he groans, “Fuck, I wish-” 

Eduardo leans in so near his breath brushes over Mark’s face, “What do you wish,” and Mark nearly sobs, “Oh _god_ I want – I wish I could see you.”

“Use your imagination, Mark,” Eduardo croons into his ear, accent incredibly thick by now. “Just _think_ about it, how I must look right now, how _you_ must look,” and Mark can feel his wrists chafing themselves red with the friction around them, his hands above them clenching into fists and unclenching again, fingers clawing at the headboard.

He can hear Eduardo licking his own palm before beginning to touch himself - probably extra loud on purpose just to make sure Mark can tell, the bastard - and he’s riding Mark at what’s clearly just exactly the right angle to nail his own prostate, groaning every time he drops back down, but too fucking _slowly_ to get Mark off any time this century. It’s fucking _destroying_ Mark here, and deep down he knows he deserves it – only by this point the pain and the pleasure have intertwined themselves inside him so tightly that he can’t figure out _what_ he deserves or how it relates to what Eduardo’s giving him. Or is it taking from him?

He braces his hands against the headboard, face twisting and back bowing as he tries to writhe up into the depth and pace he wants, needs. When that doesn’t work he tries the same with his heels against the posts, hearing Eduardo’s breathless laugh (not quite cruel, not quite) when this effort too proves vain. 

If it had been the other way around, if Mark had been the one betrayed, he knows that he wouldn’t have hesitated to do far, far worse to Eduardo. But Eduardo’s not like Mark - not even the nowadays Eduardo, older and more bitter - and maybe that’s always been the worst and best thing about him. Mark is perfectly aware that Eduardo has no reason to trust him ever again; and probably that’s only fair. But this, all of it, is him saying in the only way he knows how: _for what it’s worth, here,_ I’m _trusting myself to_ you.

Eduardo rocks down onto him hard, moans breathily (exaggerated for show, maybe, Mark can’t tell) as he twists his hand noisily around his wet cock, and Mark’s seriously on the edge of actual tears when Eduardo leans in soclose to his face, exhales one hard hot breath against Mark’s mouth as he reaches up and - sex-clumsied fingers fumbling and fucking up in the dark - finally unties the cord binding Mark’s hands. 

Mark fucking _explodes,_ knocking pillows off the bed, the thick solid headboard slamming _thud_ against the wall as Mark wrenches his shoulders and torso up so violently that he can hear one of the foot bindings start ripping loose, either the knot failing or the actual cord tearing apart, he doesn’t know or care because now he finally has the leverage to sink his fingers into Eduardo’s hips and _move_ them, pushing up deep as he drags his palms all over Eduardo’s body to touch everyfuckingwhere he wasn’t allowed to, grinding Eduardo down onto his dick at the perfect angle and speed and _everything_ that he’s been craving all along. He drops his right hand down to lock onto Eduardo’s steadily leaking cock, one hard squeezing pull in time with a stabbing thrust and Eduardo hisses _“Yes”_ and comes. 

He’s clenching like crazy from his orgasm, body vise-tight and Mark’s too worked up to withstand it: he comes too, just a few frantic thrusts later, halfway in and halfway out of Eduardo’s body. 

When he comes back to himself, the first thing he can feel is the heave of Eduardo's chest against his own as he pants for breath atop him. The second thing he feels is his own spunk all over Eduardo’s ass, inside and out, and Mark reaches out blindly with one hand, smearing it over Eduardo’s flesh. Here in this moment he wishes so badly to say _mine,_ whisper it smug and harsh and proud into Eduardo’s skin; only Eduardo _isn’t_ his, not remotely, and Mark has himself alone to blame for that. 

When the sticky heat gets to be too much, he wriggles uncomfortably and Eduardo immediately rolls off of him. He flops a limp hand across Mark’s flanks (still heaving with aftershocks) and says, all out of breath, “Oh, _god._ You _okay?”_

His ingrained solicitude even after – everything is so incongruous that Mark would snicker if he had the breath for it. As it stands, he’s too drained to do much of anything but nod. 

Eventually Eduardo gets up, with a wince and a soft noise of exertion, and pads over to pull the drapes back again. The gray quarter-light that floods into the room is probably still pretty dark objectively, but it seems like brilliant sunlight compared to the total blackness of before. He pauses at the foot of the bed to undo Mark’s one-and-a-half remaining bonds, rubbing brisk and brief over each ankle to make sure they’re all right, and Mark’s hands still feel kind of like someone removed every bone in them but he manages to maneuver them enough to massage his own wrists a bit. The skin there is marked up so bad he’s going to need long sleeves for days. 

He’s exhausted in every way it’s possible to be, and it’s starting to send him to sleep, body hunching into itself in the sweat-reeking sheets. Eduardo’s doing the opposite, though, growing more alert by the minute as he begins to gather together his clothes and briefcase. 

“You’ve got the suite through tomorrow,” he informs Mark, all back to business, voice neutral. “Just so you know. I have a plane to catch now.” He’s redoing his belt, and Mark hears him murmuring, half to himself: “Damn. We never did end up using this.”

Barely conscious, Mark mumbles slurrily, “Next time,” and then he rolls over and passes out.

He dreams about sex – unsurprisingly, considering what he’s just been doing – and it’s half a memory: the first time he and Eduardo were at the same charity gala, saw each other across the crowded ballroom and then both spent the whole night trying to avoid contact while doing enough stress-drinking to get bad-decision-making drunk. And the bad decision they ended up making together was sex, fury-fraught sex like a sizzling-hot fever dream, sex so undeniably mindblowing that they couldn’t _not_ try it again. And then again, months later, and again and again. It’s an absurd freak of chemistry, fate’s twisted sense of humor, that they still have this insane driving need between them when they aren’t even _friends_ anymore.

 _I need you,_ Mark used to tell Eduardo, and sometimes he meant it like needing a friend but most of the time he meant it like needing a tool, something to use. Ironic that after all that’s happened, that’s what they are to one another now: means to an end, nothing more. 

He wakes, as per usual, alone. He and Eduardo meet up to sleep together but they never _sleep_ together; Mark can’t remember it ever happening, not once. Right now it’s some depressing hour like three in the morning, since he fell asleep all fucked out yesterday _afternoon_ and now his already travel-screwed sleep schedule will be even more messed up, great. And of course he can’t get back to sleep, so he just lies there in the sex-torn bed, semi-hard from a mix of leftover dream and yesterday’s memories, thinking and trying not to.

He wonders how it would have been if they’d done this back in college, whether it would have been anywhere near this good or whether - as sick as it sounds - it’s the awful shit they’ve put each other through that makes the sex so crazy-intense now. What he doesn’t let himself think about is whether it might have been _better,_ how Eduardo would have kissed him sweet, touched him sweeter, murmured into Mark’s ear the sweetest things of all. He doesn’t even bother to torment himself trying to imagine it, because that ship sailed long ago, that bridge went up in flames, and it doesn’t matter that if he could, now, Mark would trade all the earthshaking sex in an instant for just one of the old Eduardo’s soft, bright best-friend smiles.

Irrelevancies. All of that’s dead with the past, and there’s no point in looking back. Regret is nothing but an unproductive waste of Mark’s valuable time.

He rolls over to grab his bag from the nightstand (grimacing as every single muscle in his body protests) and sees the things that Eduardo must have set out before he left, as Mark slept: a carafe of water, the ice long since melted, and a glass, and a couple of little white pills that look like painkillers; also Mark’s keychain, with the penlight reattached, and his phone, which is blinking with a new text.

It’s from Eduardo’s private number, a city/date/time/hotel/pseudonym info list like before, and Mark figures it’s an accidental re-send of the last one and almost deletes it, except that on second look all of the specifics are different. The city isn’t Boston, it’s Bangkok, and the date’s just a month away from now, at which time Mark’s pretty certain his work schedule isn’t even supposed to take him anywhere in Asia at _all._ And this message – unlike every other such text Eduardo’s ever sent him - has a question mark at the end.

He frowns, checks his phone’s calendar-planner just to make sure, and then texts back, _i dont have business there then, tho_

There’s a long, long delay before the reply flickers up onto the screen: _I know._

Mark spends five whole minutes staring at his phone before he texts back, just: _ok._ Then he drops onto his back on the bed, letting the phone thump softly into the bedding beside him, and he stares up at the ceiling, not even trying to fight the tiny, tiny smile that’s curling up one corner of his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> includes bondage, gagging, sensory deprivation, powerplay, barebacking, orgasm denial, and a brief mention of fantasized breathplay/strangling.


End file.
